


Hoping I'd See Your Face Again

by GreenAppleSause



Series: The Sadness Crimes Series [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Gen, I'M FINALLY WRITING SOMETHING MELANIE CENTRIC, Kinda?, Team as Family, Vague AU?, polaroid camera
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 15:47:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18391478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenAppleSause/pseuds/GreenAppleSause
Summary: Melanie refuses to lose anyone else, and she refuses to let anyone else forget anyone again.Part 1 ofThe Sadness Crimes Series





	Hoping I'd See Your Face Again

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly based on a headcanon I have in general, but mostly about Melanie.

One of the first things Melanie when she started ghost hunting was that supernatural things were more likely to appear on traditional film than digital film. So she invested in a polaroid camera.

It became one of those things she just always had with her, much like her multi tool that she had gotten on her eighteenth. ‘You never know when you’re going to need a knife Mels’. Or a corkscrew,’ her mother had told her when she gave it to her. The belt pouch had worn down over the years, but after changing out the velcro for a press button, it was fine to keep on her belt while she climbed over fences.

It was rare for her to leave either of these things alone, but she had to put it down to sign in to give her first statement at The Magnus Institute. She didn’t notice the girl, who she would later learn was Sasha James - the _real_ Sasha James - take a photo with it and hide the polaroid in the camera’s bag.

By the time Melanie returned to The Institute, Sasha wasn’t Sasha, and she hated it. It felt wrong. She told Jon that _was not Sasha_ and then she left for India.

It wasn’t until she went to change batteries in her camera that she found a photo of Sasha, the real one, in her camera bag. It was a shaky selfie of the brunette smiling right at the lens. In quick scribbled pen at the bottom of the photo was _“Hey Melanie, it’s Sasha. If you want to get coffee, here’s my number”_

Melanie, sitting on the end on a hotel bed just stared at the photo in shock. She was starting to think she was crazy, that the Sasha she remembered was wrong. But this photo, she could see herself signing in at the desk of the woman with a name starting with R in the background. This was _the real Sasha_.

She didn’t know when she started crying, thinking about how much she missed by not checking her camera bag for so long. But… would she have remembered the real Sasha if she had checked? Or would they have been close enough for the thing that was pretending to be Sasha to wipe her memory of the real Sasha?

She slipped the photo into her wallet, behind her ID, so it wouldn’t get lost.

Melanie didn’t forget about the picture, not even when she started working in The Archives, taking it out every time she had to look at a picture of Not!Sasha, as everyone else had started calling it. None of them could remember what she really looked like though.

It was a few days before Tim was going to go deal with The Unknowing that she pulled him aside with a, ‘I need to show you something before the whole “save the world” thing.’

He followed, ‘What is it? A plan to kill Bouchard before the ritual?’

‘No,’ she sighed, ‘a photo.’

She pulled out the photo of real Sasha and passed it over to him. They were both quiet for a beat before he looked up, teary. ‘She… she had glasses?’

Before she could respond, Tim gripped her arm, tighter than she knew he could. ‘This… this is the real Sasha? The one you remember?’

‘Yeah. That’s the real Sasha.’

He nodded, passing it back to her. ‘Keep this safe. And thank you… for give me my friend back.’

‘You mind?’ she asked, holding up the polaroid camera to him, ‘In case?’

He nodded. ‘Go for it.’

She took the photo. It wasn’t even a week later that Tim died.

Melanie visited Jon once while he was in his coma, holding the photos of Tim and Sasha. Martin had been weird, and other than him, she was the senior most member of the team still up and active. It made her a mess of angry and sad, burning tears streaking down her face as she left. ‘This isn’t over Jon. You need to get up.’

After the fight against The Flesh, and Martin leaving to do who knows what, Melanie snuck a photo of Basira. She didn’t want to risk forgetting or losing anyone else, so she was going to make sure that, when she next caught a glimpse of Martin, she got his photo as well.

After Jon woke up, she got his photo suddenly. An angry flash of the camera in his face before she turned around, waving the film as she walked away. She still hadn’t gotten a photo of Martin since he left.

She spent a lot of time with Helen after the impromptu knee surgery. She was interested in Melanie’s idea of the polaroid collection, but did tell her that it might not always work. She didn’t care. This was the closest thing she had.

When Basira was gone, Jon was in the coffin getting Daisy - _Daisy was alive_ \- and Melanie was alone, she spent one of those two nights crying over her photo collection, taking one of herself to add to the collection.

She wrote the real Sasha’s birth and death day on a small slip of paper, doing the same for Tim. Melanie was wrote her birthdate, along with Basira and Jon’s, on all their respective slips, planning.

A while after Jon and Daisy came back, she took Daisy aside, knowing the feeling of having her entity ripped from her.

‘I just feel… broken, I guess?’ Daisy told her.

Melanie nodded. ‘Like a puzzle piece that had one of it’s ends cut off so it doesn’t quite fit back in anymore. It’s the right piece, it just feels wrong.’

Daisy nodded at her, eyes glancing over to the small pile of photos, sheets of paper and polaroid camera on Melanie’s desk. ‘What’s all that?’

‘I don’t want to forget anyone we lose down here. We’ve already lost two, three if you count how Martin has just fucked off.’

Daisy picked up the camera. ‘Mind if I join?’

Smiling, Melanie took the camera from the former officer, taking her photo. After, she handed the photo, a piece of paper, and a pen to Daisy so she could add herself to Melanie’s plan.

‘I was planning on putting these all up on the pinboard outside Jon’s office,’ she admitted. Without saying anything, Daisy picked up a staple gun and some of the photos, a silent offer to help her put them up.

Apparently Jon was recording when they started stapling, so he came out to find out what the hell they were doing. All they had gotten up at that point was a banner saying _“Magnus Archives Team 2015 - 20__”_

‘What are you doing?’ he asked. The girls just shook their heads and continued. Once they put Sasha’s photo up - the _real_ Sasha’s photo - he knew, nodded, and left them to it, going back to the recording.

Melanie smiled up at the wall, seeing everyone’s names up on the wall, and almost everyone’s face. Even if Martin wasn’t working down there anymore, she wrote him a little slip, in case she ever did manage to catch him in the breakroom or elsewhere.

‘I could always Hunt him down if you wanted me to,’ Daisy offered a few days later.

‘No,’ Melanie smiled. ‘I’ll get him one day.’

* * *

Martin didn’t make a habit of sneaking into the Archives, even at night, especially since he knew that everyone basically lived there now. Something drew him down there though. And when he made it, he felt guilty.

He saw the wall of all of them and a girl he didn’t recognise. Taking a closer look, careful to be quiet, knowing that Jon or someone else was probably sleeping in the office, he saw that it was the real Sasha.

Everyone had a photo, except him. He was surprised he even made it on the wall. Out the corner of his eye, he could see Melanie’s desk, and on it, her camera.

It went against everything Peter had told him, but he wasn’t cut out to be Lonely, this just proved it to him. He quietly took a photo of himself with the camera, and wrote on the bottom of the film before it even developed, running back upstairs.

* * *

Daisy hadn’t lost her Hunter’s sent while she was Buried. It was weakened, certainly, but she could smell that someone had come into the Archives, someone different.

Nudging Melanie awake, the two went into the work area, where Daisy could smell they had been.

‘My camera’s on,’ Melanie whispered, creeping forward to her desk, Daisy watching her back. On her desk, her camera was on, and next to it was a photo of Martin, the film still a little warm. Written on it was _“Be Back Home Soon.”_

‘I told you I’d get him,’ she said, holding the photo up to her friend, smiling.

Daisy laughed, getting the staple gun out and offering to put it up for her. ‘Jon’s going to lose his shit when he sees this.’

Melanie laughed with her, looking at everyone all together for the first time. ‘Yeah, he is.’


End file.
